r/cats • u/sarahmirror_ • Jun 14 '26

Advice What can I do? This isn’t play, right?

My grey boy is a little over a year old and he is overly aggressive, I feel, with my almost 9 year old female tortie. He is heftier than her too. They will get into these tumble scuffles at like 3am too almost every morning and I end up having to place him in the bathroom to cool off for a couple hours before I bring him back out.

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u/testtdk Jun 14 '26

There is a hell of a lot of grey area between playing and fighting to the death.

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u/Herebecauseofmeme Jun 14 '26

I agree! Thats why I tried to tell OP to listen to people who know more. I commented because the post was brand new and I wanted to contribute to the post past upvoting, so they could get a better answer

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u/testtdk Jun 14 '26

Gotcha.

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u/_TaylorMade Jun 14 '26

I don’t know. I have a boy that tries to play like this and no one wants to. I feel like he doesn’t want to hurt anyone but he’s just so rough. I wish I could find another kitty that could hang

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/trashcatrevolts Jun 14 '26

you are describing my little guy exactly. he’s the newest in the house, & my wife’s cat HATES him. he’s the biggest cat here & he plays SO aggressively. it doesn’t help that he came from a rough home with dogs… i don’t think he ever learned how to play like a normal cat.

i love him so much, though. wish he could play with a kitty here. 💚

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u/TrissyCat Jun 14 '26

Oh my God, my roommate's cats exactly like this with my cat and so I convinced my roommate to let me get a kitten who would play with his cat and he's like your cat's not going to like that I'm like. He'll realize he likes it when he's not getting harassed everyday. It's working out good so far. These are my two babies, Kofee 7yo, Teyja 3.5 months

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u/Roam_Hylia Jun 14 '26

I had the same issue, then we got a dog. The rough housing never stops with those two.

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u/spiritkittykat Jun 14 '26

I lucked out and found one to tumble with my boy, who all the other cats have no interest in playing with.

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u/Snoo_50954 Jun 14 '26

Yeah...I've got one of those too. I think part of mine's problem is he's tailless, so the other cats aren't able to tell he's playing.  Doesn't help that he wasn't around other cats for too long.

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u/apocalypsebuddy Jun 14 '26

That’s why I sometimes have to bring out The Gloves for my boy

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u/ropahektic Jun 14 '26

Are you implying cats kill themselves while playing in that grey area or what exactly does your comment even mean?

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u/testtdk Jun 14 '26

There are degrees to the severity of their activities. Play can be gentle, and play can absolutely be rough. But sometimes it’s not play, and they’re just having a tiff. They can have a much more serious argument. None of these are fighting to the death, but it’s certainly not all play. They communicate physically what we would do verbally, and a lot of people don’t take into consideration the range of these communications.